NZ Megaphone Paul Henry picks up where he left off

Lucy Clark, Friday, 24 February 2012

Shock jock Paul Henry has made his Aussie TV debut – and proved he hasn't left his controversial ways behind him in New Zealand.

Hot on the heels of its huge slump in profits and jumping on the Rudd Resignation bandwagon, Lachlan Murdoch's Channel Ten launched its new breakfast show on Thursday – with co-host Henry – four days early.

True to form in his deliberately provocative manner, Henry told viewers "we will be all over Kevin Rudd and all over Julia Gillard, just as they are all over each other" and described the political fallout sparked by Rudd's resignation as "an unprecedented waste of our time and money".

He badgered deputy opposition leader Julie Bishop for refusing to choose who she would vote for out of Gillard and Rudd, and he opined that one viewer who called in to the show sounded like she'd been drinking.

Henry also demonstrated his notorious political incorrectness in relation to a story about the world's smallest man. "He's got a meeting with a ruler," he quipped.

Murdoch hired Henry, offering him a salary of NZ$1 million a year, after he resigned from TVNZ amidst the Sheila Dikshit scandal and also admitting he "crossed the line" by questioning whether Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand was really a New Zealander.

Henry is joined on Breakfast by co-hosts Andrew Rochford, Kathryn Robinson and Magdalena Roze.

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